Hailed by the Huffington Post as the Los Angeles couple who wrote the ‘definitive guide to Sex, Relationship and Hormones,’ Judith Claire and Frank Wiegers are the relationship experts behind the award-winning book So THAT’S Why They Do That! Men, Women And Their Hormones. Judith founded her thriving Los Angeles counseling and coaching practice in 1978. Frank, a former fighter pilot, launched his encore career as a sex and relationship teacher and coach. Together, the happily married couple created TopGunLove.com to help singles and couples navigate the world of relationship and sexual happiness.

We are the “poster seniors” for 50+ relationships: we met each other when Judith was 60 and Frank was 69, had a committed relationship for four years and married in 2008.

As a couple, we had to work through the regular man/woman, two-alien-beings-living-together conflicts, as well as face the many problems aging brings, such as health and hormonal issues. Fortunately for us, we have the knowledge and communication tools to weather the storms and to get closer, go deeper and create a rich, loving relationship. Here are some tips we share with our clients to build a loving, lasting love, sex and relationship life.

 

  1. Creating love is something you must do on a daily basis. Once the chemicals have worn off from new love it’s up to each of you to create the love anew. Find things that let the other person know that you love them deeply and that their happiness is so important to you.
  2. Rituals are a great way to deepen intimacy. Start off in the morning by telling each other the things you love about each other. It gets repetitive but the idea is that you are renewing your connection to each other. It doesn’t matter what you say as long as it is loving and positive. We do it everyday, and it puts our attention on what’s right about each other, vs. what’s wrong.
  3. Make a gratitude report at the end of the day. Tell each other what you are grateful for that day, including the things your partner did. That puts your attention on the blessings in your life and the blessing of your partner.
  4. Check ins/situation reports are ways of staying up with what’s going on with each other. For example, at the evening meal tell each other everything you did that day, in detail. Who you talked to, where you went, what you did and what your feelings are. Team talks can be about some project or goal the two of you have set out.  Plus, women love to talk, especially about emotions and feelings.
  5. A vision plan is an essential ingredient to a fulfilling relationship. It’s important to discuss what you both want for the life you lead together. Maybe it’s to raise kids, or travel the world, or make a contribution to the planet by some work that you do. It’s also important to talk about how you see your life developing. Where do you want to live? Do you want children? How will you deal with friends and relatives? What standard of living do you want? We revisit our relationship vision at least once a year.
  6. Reading sex and relationship books and discussing them will open areas of new understanding for each of you. Often times reading a book will awaken a repressed fantasy that your partner may have been afraid to talk about for fear of being misunderstood. Perhaps you learn some new communication techniques that will smooth things out for you.
  7. Sharing fantasies is a great way to really deepen intimacy. Not just sexual fantasies but life fantasies e.g. dream vacations, work you’d like to do, hobbies you’d like to take up. Often these fantasies are kept secret for fear of being judged, so the first rule of sharing fantasies is–no judgment. They are only fantasies and that doesn’t mean that they will ever be enacted. Knowing that can be very titillating and exciting.
  8. A Relationship Diary or Journal is a wonderful record of how you are growing together. We write in our Journal twice a year, on our anniversary and six months later. We put down all the things we would like to accomplish in the next six months and then review the past to see how far we’ve come on the goals we set the last time. We have our relationship vision there and record any major occurrences that have happened; trips we took, illnesses we’ve overcome.